Extradition
by Gil Shalos1
Summary: "They hadn't come at regular intervals, but still, Jack McCoy had gotten used to them. Little cardboard cards with pictures of monuments, notable buildings, scenic vistas ..." Becoming District Attorney comes with a set of new problems for Jack McCoy. Some answers lie in the past, some in the future ... and some a long way away. Follows "All Relevant Evidence".
1. Prologue: Postcards From The Edge

They hadn't come at regular intervals, but still, Jack McCoy had gotten used to them. Little cardboard cards with pictures of monuments, notable buildings, scenic vistas. They turned up in his mail, addressed in familiar spiky handwriting, no message, no return address. Sometimes days apart, sometimes two or three at once: the Washington Monument, a picturesque coastal hamlet, the Grand Canyon … no message, except the message that the cards themselves embodied. _This is where I am. I_ _'_ _m okay._

 _I_ _'_ _m thinking about you._

The last one, the forty-eighth, had a picture of the Space Needle.

After a week, it was clear that was it. One post-card from each state, the last telling him _I_ _'_ _m home_. _I_ _'_ _m okay._

 _I_ _'_ _m thinking about you_.

Then nothing.

McCoy kept the postcards bundled together with a rubber band in the bottom drawer of his desk, on top of a sealed envelope of photographs and next to the scotch.

There was a stall selling tourist memorabilia, including postcards, near the courthouse. One day on impulse McCoy bought one showing the Statue of Liberty. He addressed it _Regan Markham_ , and then stopped, with no idea where she was.

Finally he wrote _Markham_ _'_ _s Corner_ , _Washington State_ , and his best guess at the zip code, and asked Colleen for a stamp.

He wondered if it would get to her. He wondered what message she'd take from it. _I_ _'_ _m still here. I'm okay._

 _I_ _'_ _m thinking of you._

It didn't come back _addressee unknown_. That was something.

That was all.

Regan could have called him. Office phone, home, his cell. She had all his numbers. She could have called him on any line, at any time.

She didn't. Just the postcards, until they stopped.

She'd left him, and she was gone, and no-one would have blamed McCoy for moving on. He told himself there had barely been anything between them to move on _from_. Some evenings, when there was absolutely nothing on his desk he could bury himself in, he flicked through his address book.

There were numbers in it that he could call, plenty of them.

There were numbers he knew he could get, with a minimal exercise of charm.

There was Connie Rubirosa. She was tall, and she had the same tenderness toward some of their young and hapless defendants that Regan had shown. She was stunningly beautiful, she was well on her way to being a brilliant attorney, and judging by the hours she put in, serious relationships were nowhere on her horizon.

McCoy toyed with the idea of exercising his charm in Connie's direction — hold her gaze a little too long, let his hand linger when he ushered her through a door, reach for a file or law report at the same time she did, all the old tried-and-tested stratagems from the Jack McCoy playbook. He toyed with the idea, until a witness erupted out of his chair in fury, and Connie told him soothingly to _Calm down_.

McCoy could hear Regan saying exactly the same thing in similar circumstances, flat and calm and utterly confident.

He stayed collegial and professional with Connie.

Abbie's temporary replacement, Gina Kerrigan, was smart and tough and a brawler in the courtroom, but so slender and delicate she bordered on the fragile. Watching her struggle with the heavy courthouse doors one morning, McCoy couldn't help thinking of the way Regan had always planted her feet and hauled at the handle, like a sailor pulling in a net. He took the last steps up to the door in two long strides and reached past Gina to open the door for her — gave a polite smile when she thanked him, and hurried on to his chambers hearing.

Louise Jamoski, down on the seventh floor, played basketball three times a week and had the height and reach for it. She wasn't afraid of taking a knock on the court or _in_ the court, and for a while McCoy toyed with the idea of inviting her to dinner to talk about one of her cases. He went so far as to drop by her office with the preprepared excuse of an appeals issue. Louise was sitting at a desk so crowded with knickknacks and framed photographs there was barely room for her legal pad. McCoy wondered if she could even fit the contents of her desk into a single suitcase, let alone her whole life. He asked her to look over the case file in his hand, and went back to his own office.

He didn't call any of the numbers he knew, not even Danielle, who was between boyfriends and let him know it.

There was scotch, of course. There was always scotch. The problem with scotch, though, was that when he drank enough to be able to fall asleep, the last thing he heard on the edge of dreams was Regan's voice, soft in the darkness. _I_ _'_ _m here. Go to sleep._ Her fingers running through his hair.

It left him plenty of time to drop by Abbie's and listen to the amazingly miraculous things baby Ellie Jacqueline Carmichael-Cassidy had done that day. It left him time to accept Serena's dinner invitations more often than once or twice a year, too, and he spent a number of pleasant evenings trading stories from the trenches with Megan Wheeler, the both of them getting gently chided by Serena for their disregard for the spirit, if not the letter, of the law.

It left him time to say _yes_ when Jessica Sheets called and suggested a long weekend at a fishing lodge upstate. Neither of them could fish worth a damn, but three days of companionable mostly-silence watching the ripples of water on the surface of the lake was worth the drive, as were three evenings trading war stories as the level of scotch in the bottle got lower.

It also left him plenty of time for work. He and Connie Rubirosa topped the tenth floor league, outright crushing his own previous record for convictions. When even work didn't fill all the evenings and the early mornings and the Saturday afternoons, McCoy started making idle notes on some patterns he'd noticed in recent judicial decisions. The notes grew longer and turned into an article. The _Harvard Law Review_ accepted it. Columbia took the next. New York University invited him to give a guest lecture. It wasn't the first time they'd asked but it was the first time he'd said yes. The papers wrote it up.

If he'd thought about it, McCoy would have seen it coming, but in fact it took him completely by surprise when Arthur Branch resigned and named McCoy as his interim replacement. The other contenders had made powerful enemies. So had McCoy, of course, but his accidental public profile and his conviction record made him an acceptable compromise candidate.

Being District Attorney filled a lot more of his evenings.

He moved the bottle of scotch to the bottom drawer of what he still thought of as _Adam_ _'_ _s desk_ , even though there was a whole row of decanters on the liquor cabinet across the room.

He moved the envelope of photographs and the bundle of postcards there, too.


	2. Your Department

_Funtastic Fashion_

 _Midtown, New York_

 _Thursday 13 September 2007_

* * *

"I swear, one more time, I am kicking her out," Jill Bryant said.

"Uh huh." Tony Mills struggled to sound interested, having heard it all before. He leaned sideways as far as he could to check on the mannequin from the same angle as it would be seen from the street.

"I mean, how hard is it to fish a bit of hair out of the plughole?"

"Clearly it isn't easy," Tony said. He adjusted a pin. "Or you wouldn't bitch about it all the time."

"Well, it isn't my hair!" Jill ran her palm over her own crew cut. "Touching other people's hair, it's disgusting."

"Okay," Tony said. He crawled backward a little. "Pass me that magic tape, will you?"

Jill did. "Hey, Tony, I think that chick is checking you out."

"My ass does look fine in these pants," Tony said. He glanced through the window. "Nah, she's just looking at the clothes."

"She's been there for like, five minutes. Nobody looks at a window display that long, even yours." Jill cocked her head. "Except maybe if they're flying. And she does look a little … vacant."

"Great." Tony moved a mannequin's arm and leaned back to study the effect. "Hope she doesn't come in _here_."

"No, she's walking off — oh shit!"

The bell over the shop door _tinged_ , and Tony looked up to see Jill sprinting across the sidewalk. She grabbed the arm of their window-shopper and yanked her backwards off the street as horns blared and brakes screeched. Tony saw Jill talking to the woman for a moment, and then she turned her around and steered her back toward the shop.

"I said, I hoped she wouldn't come in here," Tony pointed out as Jill led the other woman through the door. "Not, _go out in the street and fetch her_."

"I think there's something wrong with her," Jill said. "I mean, really wrong. Like, we should call somebody."

He sighed, and climbed out of the window. Their visitor was young, and pretty enough if you liked blue-eyed blondes, which Tony personally didn't. Dressed out of Walmart or somewhere similar …

 _And no shoes_.

"Okay, sweetheart," he said. "What'd'you take? Can you remember?" A vacant stare was his only answer. "Your name? You remember that? Jill, see if she's got something in her pockets."

Jill checked. "Nothing." She looked at him. "Like, _nothing_. Not even spare change."

Tony waved his hand in front of the blonde girl's eyes and she tracked the movement, but apart from that, showed no sign of knowing where she was or what was happening. _Maybe deaf_. He put his face right in front of hers and repeated his questions, exaggerating every word, but got nothing.

He sighed. "I guess we better call her an ambulance. They can sort out what she took and how much of it at the hospital."

* * *

 _Mercy Hospital_

 _New York_

 _Thursday 13 September 2007_

* * *

"A couple of good Samaritans noticed her about to walk into traffic," the young doctor said. "They figured she was high on something, couldn't find any I.D. to phone a friend for her, so they called 911."

Ed Green gave her his best charming smile. "Not that I don't appreciate the chance to see you again, Dr Perry," he said, "but junkies walking in front of cars isn't really our department unless they get hit."

"I said _figured_ ," Dr Perry said. "She was brought in minimally responsive, non-verbal. Co-operative when led by the hand, chews and swallows when she'd fed, but apart from that, nothing. She gets a nine out of fifteen on the coma scale — you guys know what that is?"

Green nodded. "I know that lamp over there gets a three."

"So we're looking at something new on the street?" Briscoe asked. "Or a bad batch of something?"

Dr Perry shook her head. "We ran the usual tests when she came in and got _nada_ , so we got a bit more exotic, and still nothing. Tox screen clean as a whistle, and you don't see _that_ every day in my job. Plus her condition didn't change. _Everything_ wears off sooner or later. So I did what I should have done the minute she was brought in. I ran some scans." She turned to the light-box on the wall and slapped a transparency up on it. "And it turned out to explain everything." She stabbed her finger at a point on the scan. "Transorbital leukotomy."

"And in English?" Lennie Briscoe asked.

Dr Perry turned to face him, arms folded. "Somebody lobotomized this girl. So is this your department _now_?"


	3. What Women Want

_Metropol Hotel Function Room_

 _New York_

 _Thursday 13 September 2007_

* * *

Jack McCoy sighed, squared his shoulders, and prepared to be bored witless for the next few hours. Having to attend the occasional function had been an irritating obligation when he was E.A.D.A. Now he was the District Attorney, _occasional_ had become _frequent_ and _irritating_ had become an invitation to self-harm.

He glanced around the room. The New York Bar Association's annual _Civis Ministerium_ dinner attracted a mixed crowd: the public defenders and prosecutors whose sacrifice of salary on the altar of public justice was being celebrated on the one hand, and the high-charging, well-dressed attorneys in private practice who were quietly delighted they hadn't made the same choice on the other.

Across the room, Sally Bell was talking to Erica Gardener and McCoy wondered how _that_ conversation was going. As far as he knew the two women had nothing in common except the law, and Erica hated to talk shop outside the office.

 _Nothing in common except the law, and me_. He turned away before he could accidentally catch either woman's gaze and have his suspicions confirmed. On the other side of the room to Sally and Erica, Jessica Sheets had secured a prime position near the door that the waiters used, and she raised her champagne glass to him at the same time as smoothly snaring another from a passing tray. McCoy was moving to join her when a voice behind him said, "Jack McCoy, as I live and breathe."

McCoy turned to see Randy Dworkin beaming at him. _And this week he_ _'_ _s representing … Pfiel._ McCoy offered his hand, and Dworkin shook it. "Nice to see you, Randy. Come to talk about a plea for your client?"

Dworkin shook his head. "Even I wouldn't be so gauche as to corner you to talk about a deal at the Bar Association dinner in your honor. Nice tux, by the way."

McCoy slipped a finger inside his collar and tugged, grimacing. "I spend too many evenings in it, these days. And the dinner's not in my honor. It's for all state-employed attorneys."

"Well, I'm going to let the cat out of the bag," Dworkin said. He leaned close and lowered his voice. "They're giving you a lifetime service award during the dessert course, so either make a break for the door now or think of something to say in your acceptance speech."

McCoy swore under his breath. "There's a bar down the street with eighteen-year-old Glenlivet. Can I buy you a drink?"

"I'd like that," Dworkin said, "but alas. I can't be so ungentlemanly as to ditch my date."

"Bring her along," McCoy said. "Does she drink whiskey?"

Dworkin grinned. "Like a fish, if fish drank whiskey. It's her best quality, apart from everything else. Get your coat, we'll meet you outside."

McCoy caught Jessica's eye, jerked his chin toward the exit, and went to collect his trench coat from the cloakroom — another concession to his new position, right along with all-too-many rubber chicken dinners in a monkey suit. The autumn night was mild enough that he didn't need to put it on as he waited on the sidewalk for the few minutes it took for Randy Dworkin to come through the doors with his arm around the shoulders of a young woman McCoy didn't recognize, a little taller than Dworkin with tightly scraped back fair hair.

"Ama, this is Jack McCoy," Dworkin said as the two of them reached McCoy. "District Attorney, junkyard dog, famous hard-ass. Jack, Amalina Delgasso."

McCoy held out his hand. "We haven't met, but I recognize the name," he said. "You clerked for Justice Ginsburg, didn't you?"

Amalina shook his hand, nodding. "Until last year. I'm with —"

"Legal aid," McCoy said. "I know. You gave Connie Rubirosa quite the workout on _People v Jerico_ last week."

"I still lost," she said ruefully.

McCoy shook his head. "We started with physical evidence, eyewitnesses and a confession and ended by scraping through circumstances and emotion. You did well."

Beside Amalina, Dworkin was beaming with pride.

"I got lucky," Amalina said as Jessica came down the steps to join them. "If the Supreme Court had decided _Brendlin v California_ a week later, or a week earlier …" She shrugged.

"And that continuance you got had nothing to do with expecting that decision," McCoy said dryly. "You didn't get _lucky_ , Ms Delgasso. Have you met Jessica Sheets?"

"Yes, but not recently." Amalina offered her hand and Jessica shook it. "You probably don't remember, but my mother used to work for you. She was a legal secretary."

Jessica did a visible double take as they started down the street toward the bar. "Mary Delgasso? You're her daughter? The one she brought in to the office?"

Amalina nodded. "You took me with you to see a judge in her chambers. That was the day I knew I wanted to be a lawyer."

"And now you are," Jessica said. "Congratulations, and excuse me while I look for my zimmer frame."

"If you need a walking frame, I'm ready to be measured for a coffin," McCoy said, stepping ahead of the two women as they reached the bar and opening the door for them. "They're letting teenagers into law school these days, Jess, that's all."

"If it makes you feel better," Amalina said as Dworkin hurried to help her off with her coat, "I was a high school senior and you were about fifteen minutes into solo practice. When you walked into the office that morning, I thought you were another school student there for 'Take Your Daughter To Work' day."

Jessica grinned, shrugging out of her own coat and hanging it on one of the hooks by the door. "I like you, Amalina. You and I are going to get along famously, if you keep telling such flattering lies. How's your mother doing these days?"

"She moved to Arizona," Amalina said. "You know she had some arthritis? The climate really helps."

McCoy hung up his own coat, and took a seat at the bar. He ordered four drinks from the bartender, scotch all round, and said to Dworkin, "The District Attorney and three defense attorneys walk into a bar. I don't think I'm going to like the punch-line."

Dworkin smiled. "You should have brought a couple of A. as reinforcements. Connie Rubirosa has a handy metaphorical right hook."

McCoy sipped his drink as the two women joined them at the bar, Amalina "She does, but she and Mike Cutter refused all efforts to drag them away from trial prep this evening."

"I'd be working late, too, if I was him," Dworkin said. "He's got some big shoes to fill. So does she. Abbie Carmichael, Serena Southerlyn … Judge Ross."

"Alex Borgia," McCoy said. He lifted his glass a little. "To Alex."

"To Alex," Dworkin echoed. "Who beat me in chambers when I had _you_ licked, and thank God for it."

"Amen," McCoy said, and finished his drink. He raised a finger at the bar-tender for another. "She had as much trouble as I did with the implications of that case, you know."

"I'm not surprised," Dworkin said. "The only thing worse than the police getting away with what they did would have been my client getting away with what _he_ did."

"To the least worst option," Amalina said.

"To the system working," Jessica proposed. "To our imperfect, occasionally nonsensical —"

And McCoy could almost see her, ten years younger, sitting at his kitchen table, an almost-empty wine glass in her hand, her gaze meeting his in perfect agreement while Claire looked on, bemused. He had to swallow hard past the sudden lump in his throat. "To our often absurd, beautiful system."

"To zealous defense attorneys and ruthless prosecutors," Jessica added, with a wistful smile that told McCoy her mind was running along the same track.

"To splitting legal hairs and to caviling objections," McCoy finished.

Jessica tossed her drink back with no respect for the quality of the scotch and put the glass down hard on the bar. "To Claire Kincaid," she said, and leaned forward to look at Dworkin and Amalina past McCoy. "You never knew her. You would have liked her."

It hurt, the knowledge that Randy Dworkin would never find himself fencing with Claire Kincaid in a judge's chambers, that Amalina Delgasso might joke with Jessica Sheets but would never be surprised into a laugh by Claire's unexpectedly dry and dirty wit. But McCoy was surprised to realize that the ache was almost sweet, not the breath-stealing agony he'd trained himself to ignore. _Ah, Claire,_ _you_ _'_ _d be shocked to see me now. You'd never have understood how I could be on such good terms with Randy Dworkin._

 _Or maybe you would, with a decade_ _'_ _s more seasoning — if you'd stayed with the D.A's Office._

He could almost see her, just the other side of Jessica, young and idealistic and a little uncomfortable with the idea that the messiness of the criminal justice system was something to celebrate, not deplore. _Ah, Claire._

 _I would have liked to see who you_ _'_ _d become._

"To Claire," he echoed, and Amalina and Dworkin raised their own glasses briefly, toasting the memory of a woman they'd never had the chance to know.

"So you must be pleased with the decision in _Rettele,_ " Amalina said after a moment's slightly awkward silence.

"The N.Y.P.D. will be," McCoy said. "The D.A's Office doesn't generally find itself on the receiving end of civil suits arising from search warrants."

"But you can't pretend that anything limiting police powers to search and seize would be to your taste, Jack," Dworkin said.

McCoy grinned. "I'm not a cheerleader for the police state, Randy. Just a humble civil servant, like Ms Delgasso."

"I doubt you're humble, Mr McCoy," Amalina said dryly. "And _I_ _'_ _m_ certainly not."

"I'm humble," Dworkin said as Jessica's phone rang and she stepped away from the others to answer it. Dworkin grinned. "It's my whole schtick, after all. Self-deprecation. Juries love it."

"Not just juries," Amalina said, with a smile so tender McCoy had to look away.

He finished his drink and ordered another. "So which member of New York's criminal class are you representing next?"

Amalina shrugged a little. "Just the usual assortment of possession with intent, assault with a deadly, the small fry. Sally's promised me a second chair on a murder, though. So I'm hoping the police arrest the Soho Slasher soon, and that he turns out to not have any money."

McCoy snorted. "The Soho Slasher. A robbery goes bad when the robber's surprised by the homeowners coming back unexpectedly, and the press makes him out to be a serial killer."

"Sells papers," Dworkin pointed out.

"And causes panic," McCoy said acerbically. "It's hard to get people interested in falling crime statistics when every front page is screaming that people are in danger of being knifed in their sleep."

"And hard to be the District Attorney when the voters are screaming that they're in danger of being knifed in their sleep," Dworkin said.

"I didn't look for this job, Randy," McCoy said. "And I doubt I'll be running for a second term. But while I'm here, I intend to do the job right."

"Amen," Dworkin said, raising his glass. "But if you don't run, what are you going to do with yourself?"

McCoy grinned. "Go private, I suppose. Any room in _your_ practice?"

"Dworkin, McCoy and Delgasso," Dworkin said.

McCoy tossed the rest of his drink back. "No client too guilty."

"Delgasso, Dworkin, and McCoy," Amalina corrected. "With the least experience in defense work, Mr McCoy, you would have to be the junior partner."

"Then it should be Dworkin, Delgasso and McCoy," Dworkin said.

McCoy turned as Jessica put her hand on his shoulder and saw that she had put her coat back on. "It'll be Sheets and McCoy, if Jack ever goes private," she said. " _Prior tempore, potior iure_. And I have to love you and leave you all — I have a client waiting at the 25th precinct."

McCoy raised his eyebrows. "Eighteen-B?" he asked. _She promised me she_ _'_ _d take herself off the panel, at least for a while._

Jessica shook her head. "Genuine paying client," she said, with a squeeze to McCoy's shoulder that told him she knew exactly what he was asking, and why. "Charge appears to be Grand Theft Auto. Remember, Jack — Sheets and McCoy, when you get sick of the politics."

"What happened to age before beauty?" McCoy grumbled good-humoredly as Jessica headed for the door.

Amalina stood up. "It's trumped, gentlemen, by 'pearls before swine'. Excuse me a moment."

"Isn't she something, Jack?" Dworkin said, gazing after her as she headed toward the Ladies, with a look on his face like a man beholding the Ark of the Covenant or the Holy Grail.

McCoy raised a finger to the bartender, who, thank god, was prompt. He took a long swallow of his fresh drink before answering. "She is. She's going to keep my A. on their toes."

"I'm going to marry her," Dworkin said. He leaned toward McCoy and lowered his voice. "So I wanted to ask your advice."

McCoy raised his eyebrows. "My advice?"

"You've been married, Jack. I haven't."

"My marriages weren't exactly what you'd call successful," McCoy pointed out.

"No, but they said yes, didn't they?" Dworkin shrugged. "Let me worry about after. How do I get her to say yes?"

McCoy paused. _What do women want these days? Roses? A violin? Maybe a carriage ride around Central Park?_ He took his card case from his pocket and opened it. "Call my direct line," he said, holding out a card to Dworkin. "And when Colleen Petraky answers, tell her you want to talk to her, not to me. Tell her _I_ said she should help you plan your proposal." He smiled at Dworkin. "Believe me, she's a much better source of advice than me." He took another sip of his whiskey. "How long have you two been together?"

"Two weeks," Dworkin said, and McCoy coughed as a sip of Glenlivet went down the wrong way.

"Two _weeks_?"

"I know, I know, it's not long, but she's the one, Jack. I want to spend the rest of my life with her."

"I'd still give it a few more weeks before popping the question," McCoy said.

"But what if someone else asks her?" Dworkin asked. "And she says yes?"

McCoy blinked. "Do you think that's likely to happen?"

"You saw how incredible she is," Dworkin said. "She'll be walking down the street and some guy, some _tall_ guy with a full head of hair, will see her, and sweep her off her feet, and that'll be that." He stared glumly at his drink. "And then I'll have to kill myself. Or apply for a job with the District Attorney's office. At least then I'll have the chance to see her in court, without getting charged with stalking."

"Randy," McCoy said, "from the way she looks at you, you don't have to worry about anyone else sweeping her off her feet. The last time a woman looked at me like that —"

 _She got in a car and drove to Seattle._ His glass was empty again, and he raised a finger to the bartender.

"Jack?" Dworkin asked.

"I'm wrong," McCoy said, knocking back the refill in one go. "Ask her, Randy. Do everything you can to hang on to her. Don't let her go." He stood up, steadying himself against the bar. "Or you'll regret it more than you can imagine."


	4. The Full McMurphy

_Office of Lieutenant Anita Van Buren_

 _27th Precinct_

 _New York_

 _Friday 14 September 2007_

* * *

Anita Van Buren put down her sandwich and raised her eyebrows. "Lobotomy? Now that's something you don't see every day."

"Doc Perry seemed pretty sure," Green said. "About two or three months ago, based on what the bone looks like on X-ray." He consulted his notebook. "Something called a transorbital leukotomy, which means they went in beside the eye, and possibly more than once."

"Why would you lobotomize someone _twice_?" Van Buren asked. "And before you say it, I already _know_ I'm not going to like the answer."

"Apart from fact that whoever did this might enjoy it," Green said, "the doc said the results can vary." He shrugged. "Anything from _changed affect_ , whatever that is, to the full Randle McMurphy."

Van Buren nodded. "So maybe he or she didn't get the desired result the first time. What does the M.E. say?"

"Well, there's a small problem," Briscoe said. "Our vic is alive, but not competent to waive medical privilege. And she's a Jane Doe, so no family to waive on her behalf." He shrugged. "The hospital is obliged to report, which lets the doctors talk to us, but sending her full medical records over to Rodgers is a bridge too far."

"No medical institution has reported a missing patient of her description. Ana's running Jane Doe's prints and cross-referencing missing persons reports," Green said. "If we can find a family member, I'm sure they'd be happy to waive privilege all the way from here to the moon to find whoever turned this girl's brain to mush."

"The hospital did an S.A.E. and the usual swabs and scrapes," Briscoe said. "They're on the way to forensics."

"If this was done to her two or three months ago," Van Buren said, "I doubt she's been fending for herself since then. And if she's been in a hospital, they would have noticed her missing and let us know by now. So whoever did this to her kept her for a while, and then kicked her out on the street, somewhere she'd be found."

"Somewhere she'd be found and picked up quickly," Green pointed out. "I had a look at her feet while we were there. She came in barefoot, and the soles of her feet didn't look like she'd walked all that far."

Van Buren nodded. "There's your search radius. Get the uniforms to get a canvas going, show a picture. I'll see what the D.A's Office can do about getting those medical records. You two, find out who might know how to do this. If we can narrow our suspect pool down to brain surgeons ..."

"You can probably find a how-to video on YouTube," Briscoe pointed out.

"You can, I checked," Green confirmed.

"If there is, the computer techs at One PP might be able to find out where it came from," Van Buren said. "And maybe knowing how long it's been up and who looked at it will tell us something."

"Yeah," Green said. "Like how many crazy people have Internet access. And how long it takes a social media company to comply with a warrant. We could still be waiting when Jane Doe dies of old age."

Van Buren folded her arms. "And what's your better idea, Ed?"

"I say we get the D.A's Office to lean on the hospital and get Jane Doe's medical report over to Doc Rodgers," Green said. "Who knows what she'll be able to tell us — are we looking for a righty or a southpaw, did he use something you can only get from a medical supplier?"

"I'll call A.D.A. Rubirosa and see what she can do on that front," Van Buren said. "You two, talk to the geeks. And then find someone from the D.A's expert witness list who can tell you if we're looking for an expert or an enthusiastic amateur."

Green nodded, and stood up. "Come on, Lennie," he said. "Time for a crash course in brain surgery."

"At least it isn't rocket science," Briscoe said, and followed him out the door.


	5. Competency

_10th Floor, Manhattan District Attorney_ _'_ _s Office_

 _One Hogan Place, New York_

 _Monday 17 September 2007_

* * *

Connie Rubirosa was a tall woman with legs to match, but even she had to trot to keep up with Jack McCoy when he was in a hurry. "And Jenkins will plead out to —"

"Tell Mike," McCoy said. "That's his call, now."

"Okay, well, I've got a meeting with Shelly Kates about —"

"Tell Mike about that too," McCoy said. He reached the elevator and thumped the call button. "He's E.A.D.A now, and you going behind his back to get directions from me isn't going to help him get used to it." The elevator arrived and he stepped in. "And I need you to help him, Connie. You know how much rests on his shoulders now."

Connie nodded. "Yes. Okay. Sorry." The doors started to close. "So I won't tell you that Lieutenant Van Buren wants me to apply for a _guardian ad litem_ order for a lobotomized Jane Doe in Mercy Hospital —"

The doors stopped, and opened again to show McCoy with his finger on the _hold_ button. "Lobotomized?"

"According to the attending doctor. She's not competent to consent to a waiver of medical —"

"Do it," McCoy said. "And get me a copy of the case file."

* * *

 _Supreme Court Civil Term_

 _100 Centre Street, New York_

 _Tuesday 18 September 2007_

* * *

"The injuries were reported to the police pursuant to Section 265.25," Connie said. "They caused the patient, Jane Doe, severe brain injuries which render her incapable of comprehending the concept of a waiver of privilege, nor of communicating a decision to do so. The police are making every effort to identify her and locate her next of kin, but in the meantime, the investigation into who inflicted these injuries must be able to continue." She paused. "Judge Ross, the District Attorney's Office takes no position on Ms Doe's medical care nor intends to offer any opinion regarding such care. We will be guided entirely by the recommendations of her treating physicians. Our only interest is in the speedy and thorough investigation of the crime against her."

Jamie Ross nodded. "Thank you, Ms Rubirosa. Ms Sheets, I understand you've been assigned to represent Ms Doe's interests at this hearing?"

Jessica Sheets rose to her feet. "Your honor, yes. I have no opposition to Ms Rubirosa's application, with the stipulation on medical care attached."

"I can't attach such a stipulation," Jamie said. "And you know it, Ms Sheets. Guardianship is guardianship."

"In this case, I'm prepared to take Ms Rubirosa's word," Jessica said.

"Your honor," Connie said. "I'm happy to give that word. Or you could appoint Ms Sheets as guardian. I'm confident that she will act in the best interests of Ms Doe, which include allowing the police and the Office of the Medical Examiner access to her medical records."

"Done," Jamie said. She brought her gavel down. "Order granted. Keep me posted, Ms Sheets. I'd like to know when her family is located. And you, Ms Rubirosa. I'd like to know when you catch whoever did this."

Connie nodded, and gathered her papers together. She stepped back past the bar to see Jessica Sheets holding out an U.S.B. stick.

"Thought I'd save time and come prepared," Jessica said.

Connie took it. "Thanks. The hospital just handed them over to you?"

Jessica shrugged. "I crossed my heart that I wouldn't look at them. I've been doing a lot of work with Mercy recently, representing the legal interests of their indigent and incompetent patients. They know how seriously I take privilege."

Connie raised her eyebrows. "The 18-B Counsel Pool leaves you time for that?"

Jessica looked away, busy slinging her attache case over her shoulder. "I'm off 18-B for a while," she said. "And medical ethics is interesting. Tell your M.E. that if there's anything else she needs, tests or whatever, so long as it doesn't harm Jane Doe, I'll sign off on it." She opened the courtroom door and held it for Connie to go through. "I can't think of anything more in Ms Doe's interest than catching the bastard who did this to her."


End file.
